A Doozy of a New Year's Resolution

Mr CW and I are sitting here with the kids, watching the recording of the fireworks from last night. One of the presenters was going around the crowd in Fed Square, asking them about their New Year's resolutions.

One woman, who we realised (belatedly) was probably South African, had us falling off the couches laughing. When asked what her resolution was, she replied "no more icecream".



Unfortunately, her Springbok accent made it come out like "no more arse cream".

Amen, sister.

Unforeseen Problems

Well, Santa was pretty generous with our household. The kids don't know what to play with first; they're expecting friends around any minute and Dash has got out at least five toys/games for his mate to look at. Goose can't decide what to do first when her friend gets here. What we are going to do first is have a quick lunch and then go to see Happy Feet

Mr ConnexWhinger gave me a weekend away at Harrietville at the end of March with the Guild . As well, he gave me a $100 voucher to spend at Clegs (scene of much fabric and yarn debauchery in the past). We were chatting on Boxing Day and I wondered aloud that if I only wanted to buy $50 worth, if Clegs would give me a $50 voucher in change.

Mr CW turned to me gravely and replied, "It never occurred to me that you would have any trouble spending $100 on yarn in one go."

Me neither, come to that :D

**Updated to add: Happy Feet was a great movie to take the kids to, and Mel and I enjoyed it as well. It's one of those movies with two stories: one at the kids' level, with some grown-up type jokes and asides (no, not adult humour) as well.

Happy Birthday, Sam

Happy 11th Birthday to Sam, aka Sammydog, my Mum's dog.

Sam was one of five pups resulting from a liaison between my brother-in-law's dog, Morgan (yes, as in Mad Dog Morgan), and my dog, Lass, when we lived on the farm. Morgan made the cross-country trip of 6km or so to express his ardour for Lass at the appropriate time. As far as we can tell, Sam is a Border Collie/Kelpie mix, and looks like a gold-and-white Border Collie.

Mum said she would only take one of the pups if she could have the pick of the litter. Sam has certainly turned out to be one of those dogs with real personality (and intelligence) and has been absolutely "bombproof" around all of the grandchildren. His one weakness is chasing and catching tennis balls, and will do so way beyond anyone's enthusiasm for throwing it.

Sam now lives back on the farm with my sister's family, since Mum and Dad moved to an apartment earlier this year. He is enjoying "retirement" from all accounts, and lives in the lap of luxury as a "house" dog, as opposed to the working sheepdogs.

Meet My Inner Goddess

Just keep it nice in the comments :D


You scored as Rita Hayworth. You're the one who has the most fun. People are attracted to you because you don't pretend to be anything but what you are. You know you are attractive and like to play on that - which makes you even sexier. However, when it calls for you to be serious, like Rita, you need to know that only hard work will get success.


Which Classic Screen Goddess are you? (pics)
created with QuizFarm.com

Merry Christmas to all, if I don't get back to the blog in the next few days. Presents are all bought but need wrapping, the tree is up, food shopping is done, no Christmas knitting remains undone, it just remains to decide if I'm going to bake bread as my Christmas Day contribution to the extended family gathering, or just go to the bakery on Sunday and freeze them for a day. Yep, sounds like a plan...

Look out, Stash

I think Wendy Knits! might be onto something here.

Dare I say it? I'm seriously considering joining up. I certainly need to do something to harness this relentless beast of mine (no, DH, not you lol).

The first step - once Christmas is over - will be to take a proper inventory of said stash and divest myself of all the stuff I'm not realistically going to knit in my near future.

Next I need to reassess all of the WIPS - knitting or otherwise - and work out what won't be finished (by me, anyway). Then these WIPs need to be set in some sort of priority. Then finished. Obviously. Otherwise what's the point?

Then the remaining stash needs to be put into some sort of order. I'm going to allow myself the spinning exemption, as well as two Get Out of Jail Free cards: Australian Sheep & Wool Show at Bendigo in July, and the Guild weekend away at Harrietville in March.

Phew. This might take me most of 2007. Anyone else got plans?

Merry and not so merry

Yesterday I went to my Mum's place to help her sort through and destash "a bit". Five hours later we had made some progress but not completed the job. Later yesterday I took four archive boxes of fabric and a box full of zippers over to Nichola's place. Boy, did she think Santa had made his rounds early :D

Seriously, I'm glad Mum is destashing now and sorting through what's important or not. I'd hate to have to do it without her in many years' (I hope) time. The funniest moment was finding an unopened packet of bias binding from Kingsway Stores (anyone remember them?), labelled July 1962 and costing 2/3 (2 shillings and threepence)!! I told Mum I could show it to Mr ConnexWhinger as proof that my hoarding habits are genetically imprinted and way beyond my control. Actually, it's probably nature and nurture!!

In a not so merry episode, one of Melbourne's quilt shops has experienced a number of thefts lately. Go and look here for the details and what to look out for. These scummy cretins have no concept of the hours and hours that go into a work of art like this. It's almost as if they'd ripped it right out of your hands.

More knitting going on but not much to show ... yet :)

That Time of Year

Here's an extract from an email I just sent to A, who has been "hosting" my Ashford Traveller wheel (with woollee winder) this year:

"No rush on the wheel, if you need to keep it until January, that's fine. It's not as if I have time to spin on my Joy at present, let alone the Traveller *boo-hoo* Although I'm hoping for more time after Christmas - yeah, I should ask Santa for an extra hour in my day. Imagine how much more you could get done with an extra 365 hours per year. That's ..... 15 days and 5 hours, or just over two weeks."

It's true, I don't think I've had the Joy out spinning for a good three months now. The knitting is certainly bowling along; I've finished my teachers' gifts (well, two out of three ain't bad), but my spinning time budget seems to be eaten up by time doing stuff for the Guild. Not complaining, just observing the irony.

So Santa, dear, if you're listening, a little wrinkle in the space-time continuum wouldn't hurt anybody really, would it?